A lexander Cauwels was very interested in joining Rotary, and he would have been an asset to any club. He spent 11 years in Rotaract in Eeklo, Belgium. Only one thing was holding him back from joining.

"They didn't invite me," Cauwels recalls. "There was no bad blood or anything between the Rotary club and our Rotaract club. It’s just that it wasn't done. Clubs were a little more elite thing in Belgium than here in the United States."

Cauwels did eventually join a Rotary club nine years later, after moving to the United States to start a food processing equipment company. He is governor-elect of District 7510 (New Jersey, USA) and member of the Rotary Club of Princeton Corridor, New Jersey.

Cauwels' experience is by no means unique. According to a March 2006 report done by RI's Membership Development Division, only about 2.9 percent of current Rotarians are alumni of various Rotary programs such as Interact, Rotaract, RYLA, or Youth Exchange . (The number is an estimate because a comprehensive database of all program participants does not exist.)

The same study noted that more than 55 percent of Group Study Exchange alumni, more than 65 percent of Rotaract alumni, and more than 80 percent of scholarship alumni were never pursued for membership.

RI President Dong Kurn Lee has emphasized that Rotary needs to attract younger membership to keep the organization healthy. So what should Rotary do to reach out to a valuable source of such youth, the so-called next generation of program alumni?

The study itself included a healthy list of recommendations, the most obvious being for clubs to invite alumni to join (see sidebar at right). The 2007 Council on Legislation Report of Action also adopted changes that make it easier for alumni to be members, including one that makes Rotary Foundation alumni qualified members, and another that exempts recent Rotaractors from having to pay an admission fee.

Rotaract and other Rotary alumni interviewed during the 2008 RI Convention have their own ideas.

"I think what we need is some mentoring program in Rotary clubs to get Rotaractors to make that transition to help them feel welcome in the club," said Tori Hettinger, a member of a Rotaract club in South Bay, California, USA.

"The gap should be filled by pushing Rotaractors from an early stage to be in Rotary and to be hand in hand with the Rotary club," says Abdallah Mehelba, a Rotaractor in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Heather Battles, a Rotaractor in Hamilton, Canada, suggested that "once there is one younger member and they keep recruiting and looking for younger members, it builds."

Everyone agreed the effort is important.

"People in Rotaract now are the future of Rotary," says Marvis Huff, a Rotaractor at San Jacinto College, Texas, USA. "So I think that if we just spread the word a little bit more it will make it a better tomorrow in the sense of Rotary."

Read more on how Rotary Foundation Educational Programs can help forge bonds between alumni and Rotarians.